Friday, December 30, 2011

AFGHANISTAN--A video given to the BBC shows the extent of the injuries suffered by a 15 year-old Afghan child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband.

The girl was left starving after being detained by him and his family for several months.

The case came to light this week when police rescued the teenager, Sahar Gul, who had been locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house.

Police say that she had had her nails and clumps of hair pulled out.

In addition they say she had chunks of flesh cut out with pliers.

Sahar Gul was married off to a 30-year-old man around seven months ago, when she was just 14 years old. Her parents contacted police after not being able to see her for several months.

She was rescued from a dark, windowless room in her in-laws' house, according to Baghlan police official Jawid Basharat.

In the video, as Sahar is taken to hospital in a wheelchair, she is asked who beat her. She names her father-in-law, her husband, her sister-in-law, her brother-in-law and her mother-in-law. The 15-year-old says her hair and her nails were pulled out by her mother-in-law.

The authorities in the northern Baghlan province said they were aware of reports that the girl was tortured after she refused to be forced into prostitution, but could not confirm that was the case.

Rahima Zarifi, director of the Women's Affairs Department in Baghlan, said Sahar had been severely tortured, both physically and mentally, and that the psychological scars were likely to endure.

The police have managed to arrest Sahar's in-laws, but her husband had already fled.

Women in many parts of Afghanistan continue to suffer domestic abuse, often at the hands of their own family or in-laws. (Read more.)

Thursday, December 29, 2011

MOGADISHU, Somalia—The girl’s voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck.

Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

“You’re next,” the Shabab warned the girl, a frail 17-year-old who was living with her brother in a squalid refugee camp.

Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her, she said. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death.

“I’ve had some very bad dreams about these men,” she said, having recently escaped the area they control. “I don’t know what religion they are.”

Somalia has been steadily worn down by decades of conflict and chaos, its cities in ruins and its people starving. Just this year, tens of thousands have died from famine, with countless others cut down in relentless combat. Now Somalis face yet another widespread terror: an alarming increase in rapes and sexual abuse of women and girls.

The Shabab militant group, which presents itself as a morally righteous rebel force and the defender of pure Islam, is seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia, according to victims, aid workers and United Nations officials. Short of cash and losing ground, the militants are also forcing families to hand over girls for arranged marriages that often last no more than a few weeks and are essentially sexual slavery, a cheap way to bolster their ranks’ flagging morale.

But it is not just the Shabab. In the past few months, aid workers and victims say, there has been a free-for-all of armed men preying upon women and girls displaced by Somalia’s famine, who often trek hundreds of miles searching for food and end up in crowded, lawless refugee camps where Islamist militants, rogue militiamen and even government soldiers rape, rob and kill with impunity. (Read more.)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

New York's own Abdel Hameed Shehadeh tried to join the U.S. military, but his plans were foiled. Now that he's in custody, he's been informing on his fellow American jihadists, one of whom is already in the U.S. military.

The government, however, won't release the names.

New York Daily News--A TERRORIST wanna-be from Staten Island ratted out dozens of people he called pro-jihadists in New York and Hawaii after he was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force, it was revealed Tuesday.

Abdel Hameed Shehadeh was a fount of information when lawmen interrogating him last year in Honolulu showed him more than 40 photos of possible evildoers, according to court papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Shehadeh’s lawyer is seeking to suppress the 22-page FBI report in which Shehadeh spills his guts.

The alleged rogues’ gallery he describes includes Brooklyn teachers of the Islamic orthodoxy Salafism, a livery cab driver, an Ethiopian Muslim in the U.S. Army and a College of Staten Island student who attended a fund-raiser at Brooklyn College for a terrorist.

Others he ID’d had delivered pro-jihadist speeches at mosques or ranted in online chat rooms, he said, and included a reputed member of the terror group Hamas who lives in Syracuse.

Most bizarre is the homeless husband-and-wife — she comes from a wealthy family and he drives a luxury BMW sedan — who watched a beheading video with Shehadeh, according to an FBI report.

Shehadeh recalled attending a lecture at the Brooklyn Islamic Center in 2008 with someone named “Omar” and a second man who peddled pro-jihad T-shirts. “Almost everything [Omar] and his friend . . . talked about was jihad,” the report states.

The names of the persons of interest are being withheld by the Daily News because Shehadeh’s claims could not be independently confirmed.

Shehadeh’s lawyer publicly filed the FBI report as part of a motion to suppress his client’s post-arrest snitching and statements about his own radicalization.

Shehadeh signed an affidavit claiming he was tricked into waiving his constitutional right against self-incrimination.

The Brooklyn-born Shehadeh, 22, is charged with lying to the feds about a failed attempt to travel to Pakistan and join the Taliban.

He also tried to join the U.S. Army himself, but was rejected because he failed to disclose his overseas trips.

“At some point after stopping the interview, Shehadeh was asked what he was thinking about. (He) answered, ‘How much I incriminated myself,’ ” Special Agent John Tinning and Detective Angel Maysonet wrote. (Source)

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

I watched this story more than a dozen times on the news over the past couple of days. I didn't see a single program that noted the obvious honor-killing elements of this massacre. Yazdanpanah had lost control of his family. His wife had left him. His daughter was dating a non-Muslim. And he killed them all.

Just as the Ft. Hood Massacre was attributed to "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" and "Workplace Violence," you can expect this massacre to be attributed to "Holiday Blues," "Depression," "Stress," etc.

GRAPEVINE — Aziz Yazdanpanah seemed to be losing control of his life in recent months — his wife left him, his house was in foreclosure, and his 19-year-old daughter was dating a young man he didn’t like.

Even so, the 58-year-old former real estate agent from Colleyville seemed to be holding it together. Neighbors say he would smile and wave as he drove through his middle-class neighborhood. Recently, he was seen raking leaves in his yard.

“He was very friendly, a very good neighbor,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives across the street. “He was out here often doing yard work and he even watched our house for us when we went to Colorado.”

Yazdanpanah, a volunteer high school debate coach described as a doting father, is the focus of suspicion a day after a Christmas morning massacre in which a man dressed as Santa Claus killed six relatives and then committed suicide.

Grapevine police arrived at the Lincoln Vineyard Apartment Homes a few minutes before noon and discovered bodies sprawled among opened presents and wrapping paper. The victims were ages 15 to 58. . . .

Yazdanpanah said he bought a gun after expressing concern that his daughter’s boyfriend was stalking him. He also insisted on picking up his daughter from her job at a phone kiosk inside Sam’s Club in Grapevine because of concerns about the alleged stalker.

The boyfriend has not been publicly identified.

Neighbors said the family was Muslim but had always hung Christmas lights on their home — except this year. . . .

But a more ominous portrait emerged of Yazdanpanah in interviews with some of his daughter’s other classmates.

“She would come to school crying and telling us her dad was crazy,” said Lacie Reed, 18. “He wouldn’t let her wear certain things. He was always taking her phone away, checking her call history and checking her text messages.”

Friends said Nona’s father had installed cameras all around the home so he could watch the family’s comings and goings. Others said he nailed her bedroom window shut so she could not sneak out at night and see her boyfriend.

“She couldn’t date at all until she was a certain age, but when he was going to let her date she couldn’t date anyone outside of their race or religion,” Reed said.

Yiselle Alvarenga, 18, said Nona’s mother and brother seemed to come to her aid when her father punished her.

“He would take her phone away and her mother would give it back to her and her brother would let her use his phone,” Alvarenga said. “She was doing good. She was just excited that her life was going to start and she was going to have control of it.” . . . (Read more.)

Several people have asked for a hard copy of Sunan Abu Dawud 3991, since Muslims don't want to believe Muhammad actually said that the sun sets in a pool of water. Here's a scan of the page:

The Hadith in question reads:

Sunan Abu Dawud 3991—Abu Dharr said: I was sitting behind the Apostle of Allah who was riding a donkey while the sun was setting. He asked: Do you know where this sets? I replied: Allah and his Apostle know best. He said: It sets in a spring of warm water.

This means, of course, that Muslims aren't allowed to reinterpret the Qur'an's obviously false claim that Dhul-Qarnain reached the place where the sun sets, and found the sun going down into a pool of muddy water:

Qur’an 18:83-86—And they ask you about Dhul-Qarnain. Say: “I shall recite to you something of his story.” Verily, We established him in the earth, and We gave him the means of everything. So he followed a way. Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water. And he found near it a people.

GEORGIA--A Muslim woman who had been charged with sending fake weapons and a pig’s foot to two New York lawmakers was killed during a struggle with a cop in Georgia on Sunday, authorities said.

Jameela Barnette, 53, of Marietta, was slapped with federal charges last month for sending New York State Sen. Greg Ball (R,C-Patterson) a vial of perfume, a hate-filled letter and a doll of the monkey Curious George wearing two Stars of David.

She had also mailed a pig’s foot to Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) in response to controversial hearings he held in March on the purported radicalization of American Muslims, Politico has reported.

A spokesman for Cobb County Police said an armed Barnette was shot to death after officers responded to a panic alarm she activated at her apartment at 11 a.m. Christmas Day.

When the cops arrived, Barnette opened the door while wielding a knife and a handgun and assaulted an officer with the blade, the spokesman said.

"Despite receiving injuries to his arm, the officer was able to use his service weapon to stop the assault," the spokesman said.

The cop was treated for minor injuries to his arm and placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

Police said they did not know why Barnette triggered the alarm.

Barnette railed to several media outlets against what she called anti-Muslim congressional hearings last spring. She told a local TV station she sent Ball, who represents Putnam County and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties, the threatening package because he’s racist toward her faith and supported King’s hearings.

“I knew the Jews were behind the hearings,” she told Politico. “A monkey is a representation of who the Jews are.”

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Meanwhile, in America, Muslims are complaining about "Islamophobia," because Lowe's Home Improvement isn't funding "All-American Muslim."

(CNN)--Bomb blasts struck at least three churches in Nigeria on Sunday as worshippers were attending Christmas Day services, stirring memories of strikes against Nigerian churches during last year's Christmas season.

The first explosion struck near a Catholic church in Madala, west of Abuja, Nigeria's capital, the National Emergency Management Agency said.

The agency said there were at least 17 bodies in the morgue at the National Hospital, and officials were still trying to confirm the total number of dead, local journalist Alkasim Abdulkadir said from Abuja.

A second attack struck the Mountain of Fire Ministries church in the city of Jos, northeast of the capital, said journalist Hassan John, who witnessed the aftermath of the two blasts that targeted the church.

No one was killed in the bombing, which John called a "miracle," but a policeman who engaged the attackers in a gun battle died of his wounds later, the journalist said, citing officials.

Another wave of bombings hit the northern town of Damaturu in Yobe state, an aid worker said, asking not to be named for security reasons.

A church, a police station and a state security building were also bombed, the aid worker said, saying there were injuries but it was not clear how many. (Read more.)

I keep telling people that Islamic values are inconsistent with Western values such as Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion. Whenever I bring up the issue, however, I am labeled a "racist," a "bigot," a "hate-monger," and an "Islamophobe."

But what happens when Muslims themselves say that Islam doesn't allow Freedom of Speech? Should we call these Muslims "racists" or "Islamophobes"?

Friday, December 23, 2011

When reports spread of sexual abuse in the Catholic church a few years ago, we heard no end of it from Muslims. "Islam is the solution!" was the mantra of the time. "Sharia will stop this evil!" Yet accounts keep surfacing of Muslim leaders molesting both boys and girls. It almost seems as if human beings in general (whether Muslim or not) are sinners in need of redemption, and that the spread of Islam will do nothing to solve society's ills.

One in ten young British Muslims advocate honor killings, and more than a dozen Muslim women are killed for the sake of family "honor" every year in Great Britain. But we must always remember that Islam is no different from any other religion, and that all cultures are equal.

UNITED KINGDOM--A baby girl born out of wedlock must be adopted to save her from the risk of being slaughtered in an ‘honour killing’, a court ruled yesterday.

If the unmarried Muslim woman’s father found out about the child, he would feel such ‘unimaginable shame’ he could unleash a vengeful bloodbath by killing the baby and his whole family, three senior judges agreed.

So they made the extraordinary order to have the one-year-old girl – known as Baby Q – adopted for her own safety.

She will now grow up with adoptive parents and, when she is older, they will explain to her why she could not have been brought up by her biological parents.

It is believed to be the first time an English court has ordered an adoption to prevent a murder.

The baby’s maternal grandmother told police that if her husband ever found out about the little girl, ‘he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children’, the court heard.

The identities of all those involved have been kept anonymous to ensure the girl can grow up safe from her apparently murderous grandfather – who still has no idea his daughter was ever pregnant. (Read more.)

Wow. Nassim was jailed for punching a nurse who tried to de-burka his wife during childbirth. If this had happened in Dearborn, Michigan, the nurse would have been fired, the media would have condemned the nurse for being an "Islamophobe," and CAIR would be demanding "sensitivity training" for all hospital employees. It's good to see that France is being a bit more sensible.

FRANCE--A Muslim man who punched a nurse for trying to remove his wife's burqa during childbirth has been jailed in France.

Nassim Mimoune, 24, had already been expelled from the delivery room for branding the midwife a 'rapist' as she carried out an intimate examination of his wife.

Then through a window he spotted the nurse taking off his wife's burqa as she prepared to give birth.

He smashed open the locked door and hit the woman in the face, demanding she replace the full Islamic face veil.

As his wife delivered a baby boy, Mimoune was ejected from the building by security men from the hospital in Marseille and arrested for assault.

A judge in the southern French port jailed Mimoune for six months on Wednesday, telling him: 'Your religious values are not superior to the laws of the republic.' (Source)

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Several months ago, Anders Breivik killed dozens of Norwegian teenagers. Shortly after the attack, a Muslim terrorist group claimed responsibility. Following this admission of guilt, I put together a blog post suggesting that the evidence pointed towards Islamic terrorism. Of course, the terrorist group was only lying. However, both I and everyone else who suspected Muslims were condemned for our "Islamophobia." Apparently, anyone who believes Muslims when they claim responsibility is a racist. The "tolerant" thing to do is to automatically assume Muslims are lying. Quite a paradox.

So what happens when the tables are turned, and the liberal media cry "Islamophobia" and "Hate Crime" when no such thing has occurred?

In the background of this grassroots work, two tragic events have taken place, which reveal the real world "human impact" of Islamophobia. In Kansas City, a young Muslim college student, Aisha Khan has gone missing after complaining to her family of a drunken man harassing her. In Houston, Texas a Muslim man named Yaqub Bham was severely beaten in what family members are calling a hate crime. These events show the urgency of the problem at hand.

What evidence did Tutt have to support his claims? A Muslim student went missing after a drunken man harassed her. Tutt sees this as clear proof that Khan was abducted by anti-Muslim bigots (probably those who regularly visit Jihad Watch and Atlas Shrugs). And a Muslim man's family is calling an attack a "hate crime." Tutt doesn't bother questioning this assessment at all.

Aisha Khan, the 19-year-old Kansas college student missing for nearly a week has been found safe and unharmed, according to ABC News' Kansas City affiliate KMBC.

Overland Park Police Officer Brian Schnavel said that Khan was not abducted or held against her will, according to KMBC.

Schnavel said no criminal act occurred.

Will Tutt apologize for falsely accusing Americans of a hate crime against a Muslim girl? We can only hope.

As for Tutt's other example of Islamophobia, the evidence isn't in yet. However, based on the reports so far, the man who committed the attack seems to be insane. According to the Houston Chronicle:

Yaqub Bham's visit to a residence in Tomball on Wednesday was supposed to be routine for the 61-year-old ADT salesman, who had come to inspect a client's property before installing a home security system.

Instead, the homeowner, David L. Nienberg, allegedly tried to stab Bham with a fork, bit off part of his ear, and beat him so badly that he broke 10 ribs.

Nienberg, 42, of Tomball, is charged with aggravated assault. If convicted, he could serve from two to 20 years in prison.

Bham's distraught family members want the incident investigated as a possible hate crime against Bham, a Muslim native of Pakistan who became an American citizen in 2007.They say an agitated Nienberg became violent after asking Bham about the origin of his name and where he was from.

Harris County sheriff's deputies who responded to a 911 call from Nienberg's family about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday did not mention the questions about Bham's name and origins in their report, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

Gilliland said Nienberg apparently became angry while reviewing the contract for a security system in his four-bedroom home on Everhart Pointe Drive. When Bham offered to make another contract, or change it, "the defendant took the backpack that Mr. Bham had and wouldn't give him the backpack, which contained the keys to his vehicle," Gilliland said.

The two men's verbal disagreement then became physical, the deputy said.

Nienberg lunged at Bham with a fork, Gilliland said he was told. Relatives took the implement away, but Nienberg allegedly managed to get Bham in a choke hold, beat him, and bite him while muttering about military operations.

When deputies arrived, Nienberg refused to let go of Bham until they "secured the perimeter" and "secured women personnel," Gilliland said.

It took three deputies to pull Nienberg off Bham, he said. They deployed Tasers on Nienberg twice, and even then, the furious man continued to kick and spit after they wrestled him into a patrol car, said Gilliland.

For all I know, Nienberg may be a vicious hate-monger. But we don't know that based on any evidence yet. All we know is that he bit part of a man's ear off and bit the man's tongue, while rambling about securing a perimeter, just before being tased by police. Nienberg sounds either crazy or under the influence of drugs. If further evidence should surface indicating that he attacked Bham due to his ethnicity or religious beliefs, I will gladly condemn him for bigotry. In the meantime, I don't see any evidence of Islamophobia.

But Daniel Tutt does, and we should find this incredibly disturbing. Tutt doesn't want a missing girl to be found unharmed. He wants her to be the victim of Islamophobia. Tutt doesn't want a Pakistani man to be the victim of an attack by a lunatic. He wants him to be the victim of an Islamophobe.

Tutt and his liberal colleagues, who somehow manage to see bigotry and Islamophobia wherever they look, are the same reporters who tell us that Lowe's succumbed to anti-Muslim bigotry. But if a reporter is wearing red-colored glasses, how can we believe him when he says, "This store is red"?

Hmmm. The West keeps asking Saudi Arabia to remove Qur'anic instruction from textbooks, and the Muslims simply won't do it. It's as if they actually believe in the Qur'an.

SAUDI ARABIA--Despite Saudi Arabia's promises to clean up textbooks in the kingdom, recent editions continue to raise alarms in the West over jihadist language.

The recent editions were obtained by the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, D.C., and the translations were first provided to Fox News.

“This is where terrorism starts, in the education system.” Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, told Fox News. Al-Ahmed, a Saudi national, said the textbooks, made and paid for by the Saudi government, were smuggled out of the kingdom through confidential sources.

In a textbook for 10th-graders, printed for the 2010-2011 academic year, al-Ahmed said teenagers are taught barbaric practices. “They show students how to cut (the) hand and the feet of a thief,” he said. In another textbook, for ninth-graders, the students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative. One text reads in part: “The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. ... There is a Jew behind me come and kill him.”

According to the textbook translations provided to Fox News, women are described as weak and irresponsible. And al-Ahmed said the textbooks call for homosexuals to be put to death "because they pose a danger at society, as the Saudi school books teaches.”

Al-Ahmed say the textbooks are both a Saudi and an American problem. “If you teach six million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers.” (Read more.)

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

I have been asked to give a review of a recent movie on Muhammad's life.

Movies about Muhammad are very important for a number of reasons.

1. They are one of the ways that Islam is promoted.
2. The are much easier and faster than reading a biography of his life and therefore have a bigger audience.
3. They have the potential to tell the truth or to hide it to a large audience.
4. The Qur'an revolves and evolves around Muhammad's life. When teaching people about Islam it is handy to have a good movie to show them so that they can get a basic idea of the events. This allows them to understand the basic context of the Qur'an and Hadith.
5. If the movie is made by Muslims then it shows you how they like to think of Muhammad.

Muslims have made a movie about Muhammad called "The Message" (1976). It is very popular and I have been given copies. However, I think for many of us we find this movie unsatisfactory because of the way it only shows the "nice" side of Muhammad and does not include the many other aspects of his life included in the Sira and Hadiths. This new movie, "The Life of Muhammad", seeks to correct this one sided presentation.

The movie has been made on a very small budget. It is basically an eclectic collection of still pictures with actors reading a script. The script is based on Martin Lings book, "Muhammad", supplemented by references to Ibn Ishaq and the main Hadith. While the production is very basic the script is not; it includes all aspects of Muhammad's life, not just the "acceptable" side.

I enjoyed watching the movie and found it touching at various points. It helped me to see some familar events in a new context. For instance, when the Christians of Najran came to Muhammad and he invited the Christians and Muslims to curse each other to see who had the truth about Jesus (Qur'an 3:59-61). The Christians refused to curse but the very next event that is recorded in the sira is that Muhammad's son Ibrahim dies. I do not know if there is meant to be a connection here but I felt there was a connection between these two events when watching the movie.

The movie shows Muhammad's face. This is a contentious matter for Muslims. I would have preferred that the movie did not show his face because I want Muslims to watch the movie and I fear they will not because of this. This movie is however very respectful and I actually think Muslims will like it. Artistically I think it is a much better step forward then the derogatory cartoons.

For those of us involved in ministry to Muslims I think this is a good tool to introduce people to Muhammad's life. I would get people to watch this movie and the "The Message" and get them to compare and contrast.

Muslims keep telling us that Sharia will improve our societies. Ask the women of Pakistan how Sharia is helping them. (Notice the article says that a law against domestic violence was dropped due to delays caused by "religious parties." There are Christians, Hindus, and Muslims in Pakistan. Care to guess which "religious party" blocked the bill?)

PAKISTAN--A teenage Pakistani woman on Monday told of her terror as her husband chopped off her nose and lips in a furious marital row, and threatened to kill herself unless the police brought him to justice.

The horrifying case underscores the brutal violence suffered by some women in Pakistan, where a domestic violence bill lapsed in 2009 after being held up in the Senate due to objections from religious parties.

Salma Bibi, 17, said her husband, 22-year-old Ghulam Qadir, subjected her to a beating, then bound her hands and feet with rope and hacked into her face with a razor in a remote village in the southwestern province Baluchistan.

"He repeatedly slapped my face and then went into the room and brought with him a locally made, sharp razor," she told AFP, speaking Baluchi in remarks translated by her uncle from a hospital bed in central Multan city.

"I started shouting in panic. He tied my hands and foot with a rope and chopped off my nose and lips," she added.

The teenager said police refused to register a case when her family complained about the attack, and threatened to kill herself without justice.

"I want justice and if it is not delivered to me, I will immolate myself in front of the Supreme Court.

"I will not sit in peace until my husband is brought to justice and gets punishment for the crime he committed," she added. (Read more.)

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Umar ibn al-Khattab was one of Muhammad's closest companions and Sunni Islam's second "Rightly-Guided" Caliph. He was an early convert to Islam, and Muhammad married one of his daughters.

After Muhammad's death, a dispute arose as to who should lead the Muslim community. Most Muslims favored Abu Bakr. However, Muhammad's daughter Fatima sided with her husband Ali.

Unfortunately for Fatima, Umar had learned from Muhammad that disagreements should be settled through violence. When Umar stormed the house where Ali and Fatima were staying, Umar broke Fatima's ribs and caused her to miscarry Muhammad's grandson. She remained sick for several weeks before dying, just months after her father's death.

Friday, December 16, 2011

On November 29th, a mob of more than 500 Muslims torched a church in Ethiopia after police had destroyed the roof. The church, in the village of Qoto Baloso, Silte province, was burned down by Muslim students, accompanied by Muslim police officials. The students were shouting "Allahu Akbar!" ("god is greater") and "Jihad!"

More than 30 police officers were deployed to destroy the church, but in the face of protests from local Christians, they held back from demolishing the rest of the building.

But it would be wrong to judge their culture. Who are we to impose Western values on Muslims?

ISLAMABAD--Pakistani Taliban fighters cut the breasts of a woman who was breastfeeding her child and asked other women to eat the pieces, in a gory incident highlighted in a report on the abuse of women in the militancy-hit tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

The incident occurred when five militants walked into a house and saw the woman breastfeeding her child, The Express Tribune quoted the report titled ‘Impact of crisis on women and girls in FATA’ as saying.

The report, released by the human rights organisation “Khwendo Kor” (Sisters’ Home in Pashto) with financial support from the UN, is based on case studies of women from the tribal belt living in camps set up in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for people displaced by militancy.

Women in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are more susceptible to abuse in a post-conflict scenario, whether or not they are part of the conflict, the report says.

Another revelation is that women in camps were forced to have sex in exchange for food and non-food items. Girls and widows were at greater risk of such abuse.

“A security officer forced me to have sex in exchange for cooking oil and pulses when I was collecting food at the main entrance of the camp,” a 22-year-old woman in Jalozai camp is quoted as saying.

The surveys conducted at relief camps at Nahqai and Jalozai showed that women were uncomfortable going to toilets because men constantly lurked around.

The report said there was also an increase in “honour killings” in which women who were raped were murdered because rape was considered a disgrace to the family.

Forced marriages, honour killings, exchange of women between tribes and marriages with first cousins resulting in disabilities among offspring have made women very dependent, the report said. (Source)

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Doesn't the BBC understand that all cultures are equal? Just because we don't cut off women's fingers to keep them from studying doesn't mean the practice is wrong. It is simply racist, intolerant, and bigoted to defend women's rights.

BANGLADESH--Human rights groups in Bangladesh have demanded a severe punishment for the husband of a young wife who allegedly cut off most of her right hand.

Police say Rafiqul Islam, 30, attacked her because she pursued higher education without his permission.

They say Mr Islam, a migrant worker, admitted to the crime shortly after returning home from the Gulf.

However there has been no independent confirmation from the suspect that he carried out the attack.

The incident is one of a number of acts of domestic violence targeting educated women in recent months.

Police say that Mr Islam, who works in the United Arab Emirates, tied up his 21-year-old wife, Hawa Akther Jui, earlier this month. He then taped her mouth and cut off the five fingers.

Doctors say the fingers cannot be re-attached and it appears that Ms Akther will have to live with permanent disfigurement.

"After he came back to Bangladesh, he wanted to have a discussion with me. Suddenly, he blindfolded me and tied my hand," Ms Akther told the BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan from the town of Narsingdi.

"He also taped my mouth saying that he would give me some surprise gifts. But, instead he cut off my fingers."

She said her husband, who is not well educated, did not approve of her enrolling in a college for higher studies.

During their earlier telephone conversations, she said, he warned her of "severe consequences" if she went against his word. (Read more.)

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

But whatever you do, don't speak against such practices. That would be "racist," "bigoted," and "Islamophobic." The tolerant thing to do would be to praise Islam, and the penalties carried out in the name of Allah.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I would comment on this school, but anything I say will be branded "racist," "bigoted," and "Islamophobic." As everyone knows, all cultures and all practices are equal. No one should be judging others, even for torturing children. So I'll just keep quiet this time.

KARACHI--Pakistani police said Tuesday they had rescued 53 students, including children as young as seven, who had been chained in the basement of a madrassa raided by security forces in the port city of Karachi.

Former students including an eight-year-old told AFP they were regularly beaten at the school, which was equipped with chains, hooks and a warren of basement rooms. The head of an education federation called it a "torture cell".

Police said 21 teenagers were among those found during the raid on the self-styled seminary in Pakistan's biggest city, used by the United States to ship supplies to troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Two children aged seven and another aged about eight were among those rescued, Naeem Akram, deputy inspector general of Karachi police, told AFP.

Madrassas, which provide the poorest families with the only education they can afford, are not tightly regulated in Pakistan and have served as recruitment grounds for the Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups. (Read more.)

Muslims tell us that the Qur'an has been perfectly preserved. Oddly enough, there isn't a shred of evidence for this preposterous claim. Indeed, a brief examination of the history of the Qur'an reveals significant changes to the text. In this video, L'Orientalist shows that changes were taking place even after Uthman produced his revised, standardized edition of the Qur'an.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

I don't get it. According to ABC News, life under Islamic rule is an interfaith paradise. Why would the Copts worry about living under Sharia?

CAIRO—Fears and worries murmur like prayers beneath the hammered crosses of the Church of the Virgin Mary.

"The whole country will collapse," says Shenouda Nasri.

"I'm trying to get my family out," says Samir Ramsis.

"This is the Islamists' time," says George Saied.

A caretaker sweeps the stones, a woman slips into a pew. But these days Egypt's minority Coptic Christians are finding little serenity. Islamist political candidates, including puritanical Salafis, are dominating parliamentary elections. Sectarianism is intensifying and the patriotic veneer that unified Egyptians in overthrowing longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak is threatened by ultraconservative Muslim clerics whose divisive voices had been suppressed by the state for decades.

"Our goal is to achieve an Islamic caliphate with Islamic sharia rules," Mohamed Zoghbi, a hard-line Salafi preacher, said this year on TV. "If Egypt becomes a caliphate, then the Middle East and Arab countries will follow our path. All Muslim youth should strive and die to build this caliphate even over their own bodies."

Copts are now anxiously watching a theological and political battle sharpen between Muslim parties that are expected to win at least 60% of parliamentary seats after the final round of elections in January. The struggle between the Salafis and the more moderate and popular Muslim Brotherhood will define an emerging political Islam and how deeply religion will be ingrained in public life.

That unresolved question is one of the most contentious in Islam. It has been energized as uprisings across the region have upended despots, leaving fertile ground for untested political voices that would have been unimaginable just months ago. It is a seminal moment for an Arab world that appears, at least for now, determined to reinvent failed secular governments through what clerics regard as the purifying prism of Islam.

"The Islamists have been unleashed," says Nasri, a pharmacist hoping to follow the lead of tens of thousands of Copts who have left Egypt this year. "You're talking about no rights for women. No rights for Coptic Christians. They'll make us more of a minority. It'll be like living centuries ago." (Read more.)

Friday, December 9, 2011

For those of you not familiar with college football, Tim Tebow was possibly the greatest college football player in history. Nevertheless, college football skills don't necessarily translate into professional football skills, because the style of play can be quite different. Due to his oddities as a quarterback, practically everyone doubted Tebow's ability to succeed in the NFL. While he's been shocking his critics with his ability to win games this season, we'll have to wait and see whether he can continue his streak.

Tebow is most controversial for his outspoken (and undeniably genuine) Christian faith, along with his apparently impenetrable moral fiber. (Click here for his website.) Not surprisingly, many people ridicule Tebow for his devotion. Tebow has never complained about the taunts, and the general consensus among sports commentators (whether Christian or not) is: "If Tebow's putting his faith out there so fervently, don't be upset when other players react."

The mocking will surely continue. However, a reporter recently asked a very interesting question. What if Tebow were a Muslim? Would the media be so forgiving of people ridiculing his prayers? Surely not. In the following video, Jennifer Floyd Engel suggests that the double standards are a result of Tebow making "a lot of us feel uncomfortable." (Hat tip to Dragostea for the video.)

Engel has raised an important question, but I think she's missed the real reason for the double standards. If Tebow were a Muslim, and his fellow NFL players were to mock his beliefs, groups like CAIR would be plastered across every major news network, lamenting the anti-Muslim bigotry, hate-mongering, racism, Islamophobia, etc. exhibited by all the evil, twisted, venom-spewing Americans who watch football. The NFL, the coaches, and the media would cave instantly to the complaints, players would be punished and forced to undergo "sensitivity training," and the gulf between Islam and all other religions would widen.

United Kingdom--A gang of Muslim women who attacked a passer-by in a city centre walked free from court after a judge heard they were ‘not used to being drunk’ because of their religion.

The group – three sisters and a cousin – allegedly screamed ‘kill the white slag’ as they set upon Rhea Page as she waited for a taxi with her boyfriend.

Miss Page, 22, was left with a bald patch where her hair was pulled out in the attack and was left ‘black and blue’ after suffering a flurry of kicks to the head, back, arms and legs while motionless on the pavement. (Read more.)

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

There are Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, Agnostics, Hindus, Muslims, and many others in the U.S. military. But we're only worried about one particular group going on a killing spree in the name of their religion. Strangely, the media and our politicians assure us that this group is no different from any other.

THE HILL--The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is hoping his panel’s hearing on the radicalization of Muslim-Americans within the U.S. military will reveal how the armed services can better protect itself against homegrown attacks.

Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) is holding a joint hearing on Wednesday, along with Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), as the next stage in his series of efforts to address the radicalization of American Muslims.

Pointing to the 2009 shootings at the Fort Hood military base in Texas and at a military recruiting station in Arkansas, which killed a total of 14 people and wounded more than two dozen, King said the issue of radicalization within military communities is one that is grossly under the radar.

“There is an attempt by Islamists to join the military and infiltrate the military, and it’s more of a threat than the average American is aware of right now,” said King in an interview with The Hill on Monday.

Lieberman said his committee has held 13 hearings over the past five years on the issue of violent Islamic extremism and, based on what he has learned, the military is an increasingly large target for attacks.

“Clearly, the threat of homegrown terrorism has increased dramatically, and clearly, members of the armed services are a high-value target,” Lieberman said in a statement.

The issue was brought to the front burner for King after it was raised by Paul Stockton, the assistant secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security Affairs. King said he feels the Obama administration is just as concerned with the issue as he is, and hopes to develop a working partnership to address some of the inadequacies that will come up at Wednesday’s hearing.

“I think more can be done,” he said. “But this is not going to be any attempt to bash the administration, necessarily. From my perspective it’s going to be a productive hearing and it’s not going to turn into a partisan fight.”

King gave several examples of issues that need more attention, such as whether the military needs to provide more security for recruiting centers and bases in the U.S. or whether local and state law enforcement should play a larger role in coordinating security with the military.

He said he also hopes to address the minutiae of radicalization on military bases. He used an example of how he has heard of at least one instance in which a copy of the radical Islamic magazine Inspire — which has been used as a recruiting tool for terrorist groups — was found in a barracks and allowed to remain. But Confederate flags are rightfully banned, he said.

“I’m using that as an example about whether or not we need to be more aggressive in facing up to the reality. It’s Islamic terrorism. It’s not just a nondescript, anonymous type of terrorism.” (Read more.)

Monday, December 5, 2011

Laying the differences between Muslims and non-Muslims aside, there is no question that major human rights violations are accepted in many Muslim communities (e.g., more than ninety percent of honor killings are committed by Muslims). I'm hoping that concerned Muslims will join concerned non-Muslims in drawing attention to the problems, so that we may confront it together.

NEW YORK, PR Newswire: The prominent human rights organization American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), its Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) program and the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST) will be hosting the first-ever human rights conference dedicated to exposing the plight of women under Islamic law in Dearborn, Michigan on the anniversary of the honor murder of Jessica Mokdad: the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.

The Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference will be held at the Hyatt Hotel in Dearborn. After bowing to Islamic supremacist pressure and canceling a speech by Pamela Geller that had been scheduled for a Hyatt in Nashville, Tennessee, the Hyatt reversed its stance, recovered its understanding of the American principle of free speech, apologized and offered AFDI space in a Hyatt for a future Conference to make it up the human rights organization. Geller chose the Hyatt in Dearborn to stand in solidarity there with girls who are in danger of being victimized like Jessica Mokdad.

Jessica Mokdad was a 20-year-old Muslim woman in Warren, Michigan, who was brutally murdered in May 2011. Fox News Detroit reported: “Authorities say a Minnesota man killed his 20-year-old stepdaughter in Michigan because she left home and wasn't following Islam.” Jessica’s stepfather, a devout Muslim, tracked his stepdaughter over four states to murder her for bringing dishonor on her family.

AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: “We’ve named the Conference after her as part of our ongoing campaign to raise awareness and bring a stop to the phenomenon of Islamic honor killing. These girls have rights, too, they’re human beings, and yet they’re completely forgotten in our politically correct culture, in which speech that is offensive to Islam is increasingly forbidden. We’re standing for the human rights of girls like Jessica Mokdad.”

Geller added: “AFDI tried to place ads on Detroit-area buses offering help to people wishing to leave Islam and threatened by their families. Detroit SMART Transit refused the ads, and we sued on free speech grounds. We won, and the ads were scheduled to run, but Detroit SMART still refused to run them – and the same week they were supposed to run, Jessica Mokdad was murdered. Perhaps if she had seen one of our ads, she would be alive today. This underscores the cowardice of Detroit-area officials and the need for this Conference in Dearborn. We welcome women seeking help and resources to escape dangerous and misogynist households.”

The confirmed list of speakers includes ex-Muslim human rights activist Nonie Darwish; Sudanese ex-slave and freedom fighter Simon Deng; and James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Taskforce (VAST), co-host of the Conference. Also speaking will be David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics, a Christian group that is suing the city of Dearborn for covering up Islamic honor killings performed in the area – that cover-up, and the resulting suit, will also be a focus of the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.

Stop the Islamization of America is a groundbreaking new book offering the fruit of a veteran national activist’s years of experience fighting back against Islamic supremacist efforts to erode our freedoms. In it, Geller offers the fruit of her experience as the national leader of the fight against the Ground Zero mega-mosque and of numerous other initiatives to defend freedom against the encroachment of Islamic law. She offers practical, tested, effective guidance on how freedom lovers can stop jihadist initiatives in local communities.

AFDI/SIOA is one of America’s foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

CLARIFICATION: Just about everyone who visits this blog knows that Acts 17 is suing the City of Dearborn for violating our Constitutional rights, so you may be confused that the above press release says that we are suing the city for covering up honor killings. Here's the connection. One of the police officers in the city jail told us about the honor crimes that are committed (and covered up) in Dearborn, and this is part of our case against the city (probably the most important part, as far as I'm concerned). We'll learn more during the "discovery" process.

Non-Muslims just can't win. If we don't conform to Islamic demands, we get accused of being "racists." If we do attempt to conform to Islamic demands, we get accused of being "racists."

French actress Marie Laforêt needed some work done at her apartment. Since she has a dog, she decided to inform devout Muslims that they aren't allowed in her house. Somehow, her attempt at appeasing Muslims has caused Muslims to a

FRANCE--One of France's most well-known singers and actresses, Marie Laforêt, will today appear in a Paris courtroom to defend herself against charges that a job advertisement she placed discriminated against Muslims.

72-year-old Laforêt, who first found fame as an actress in the 1960s, placed an ad on an internet site looking for someone to carry out some work on her terrace in 2009, reported daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday.

She specified in the ad that "people with allergies or orthodox Muslims" should not apply "due to a small chihuahua."

Laforêt claimed that she made the stipulation because she believed the Muslim faith saw dogs as unclean.

The case was taken up by anti-discrimination organization Mrap, which lodged a complaint against the internet site which ran the ad.

"To think that Marie Laforêt is racist is just stupid," said her lawyer, David Koubbi, according to the newspaper. He said the words in the advertisement were only a "warning."

Koubbi added that the star "has always shown her interest and admiration for the Muslim faith."

"She knew that the presence of a religion could conflict with the religious convictions of orthodox Muslims. It was a sign of respect."

Experts in the Muslim faith were quoted as rejecting the defence.

"Dogs are not considered unclean and it's false to suggest otherwise," said one quoted by the newspaper. (Source)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih was jailed Saturday morning for drunk driving. When news got out, she lied about it on her Twitter page, claiming that some other "Fakih" had been arrested. Her lawyer later confirmed that Rima was indeed arrested.

I can't say I care much about what Rima does in her free time, apart from when it poses a threat to everyone on the road. (Young people do dumb things; let's hope she learns her lesson and doesn't do it again.) However, we should all be paying careful attention to the "Muslims" the media pushes on us as "proof" that Islam is peaceful. Islam commands Muslims to violently subjugate non-Muslims, to establish Sharia as much as possible, not to be friends with Jews or Christians, etc. Yet whenever we raise these points about Islamic teachings, the media responds by parading people like Rima Fakih before us. The message we're supposed to take away is that Islam can't possibly call for violence or intolerance, because there are so many peaceful and tolerant Muslims. So what happens when it becomes glaringly obvious that Muslims like Rima don't take Islam seriously at all? Can we now examine Islam's teachings without the silly parade response?

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Not to worry, though. The media and our politicians assure us that Muslims are no different from anyone else.

United Kingdom--UK police recorded at least 2,823 so-called honour attacks last year, figures from 39 out of 52 forces show.

A freedom of information request by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (Ikwro) revealed that nearly 500 of these were in London.

Among the 12 forces also able to provide figures from 2009, there was an overall 47% rise in such incidents.

Honour attacks are punishments on people, usually women, for acts deemed to have brought shame on their family.

Such attacks can include acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings and in some cases, murder.

Ikwro said its research, carried out between July and November, is the best national estimate so far of the extent of honour violence in Britain, although the charity says the figures do not give the full picture. . . .

Its director Diana Nammi said families often tried to deny the existence of honour attacks and those who carried them out were "very much respected".

She told the BBC: "The perpetrators will be even considered as a hero within the community because he is the one defending the family and community's honour and reputation."

She added that there was not enough support for victims, and many needed continuing help and protection.

"For some cases, police and some organisations just help them up to a length of time, then they will stop," she said.

This video brings up one of the most embarrassing stories in the early Muslim sources. Abdullah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh converted to Islam and served as one of Muhammad's scribes. However, when Muhammad started letting him edit the Qur'an and add his own words, Abdullah realized that Muhammad was a false prophet.

Friday, December 2, 2011

That is, if Muslims don’t kill me for leaving Islam, which it requires them to do. That’s just one of the reasons I’ve been writing and drawing against Islam and its Jihad for a number of years now. But fortunately for us, Islam hasn’t been able to make every Muslim its slave, just as Nazism wasn’t able to turn every German into a Nazi. So there is Islam and there are Muslims. Muslims who take Islam seriously are at war with us and Muslims who don’t aren’t.

But that doesn’t mean we should consider these reluctant Muslims allies against Jihad. I’ve been around Muslims my entire life and most of them truly don’t care about Islam. The problem I have with many of these essentially non-Muslim Muslims, especially in the middle of this war being waged on us by their more consistent co-religionists, is that they give the enemy cover. They force us to play a game of Muslim Roulette since we can’t tell which Muslim is going to blow himself up until he does. And their indifference about the evil being committed in the name of their religion is a big reason why their reputation is where it is.

So while I understand that most Muslims are not at war with us, they’ve proven in their silence and inaction against jihad that they’re not on our side either, and there’s nothing we can say or do to change that. We just have to finally accept it and stop expecting them to come around, while doing our best to kill those who are trying to kill us.

Another problem with Muslims who aren’t very Muslim is that they lead some among us to conclude that they must be practicing a more enlightened form of Islam. They’re not. They’re “practicing” life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. But their “Islam” is not the Islam. There’s no separate ideology apart from Islam that’s being practiced by these Muslims in name only, there’s no such thing as “Western Islam”.

Non-observant Muslims are not our problem, but neither are they the solution to our problem. Our problem is Islam and its most consistent practitioners. There is nothing in Islam that stays the hand of Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it’s not because of Islam, it’s because of his individual choice, which is why I often say that your average Muslim is morally superior to Mohammad, to their own religion. The very rare Muslim who helps us against Jihad is acting against his religion, but that doesn’t stop some among us from thinking that his existence somehow means that he represents more than himself.

The only reason we’re talking about Islam is because it doesn’t mean peace. Islam wasn’t hijacked by a “small minority of extremists” on 9/11, it was hijacked by a very small minority of moderates whose embarrassment in being associated with such an immoderate religion leads them to engage in moderate truth telling about it, proving their irrelevance as allies.

In addition to these politically active moderates, when you see well-assimilated Muslims in the West, you’re not seeing Islam in action, you’re seeing individuals living up to the old adage, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. They’re essentially post-Islamic Muslims who have rejected Islamic values and have embraced Western ones. But since the process of their assimilation was implicit – as it happened naturally by their exposure to Western, i.e., pro-life, values – both Muslims and non-Muslims alike prefer to generously give Islam some credit for it. But a good Muslim, by our standards is a bad Muslim by Islamic standards. Objectively good human beings, who identify themselves as Muslim, give Islam a good face, one far better then it deserves. This only gives us a false impression about what it is we’re facing, with just another excuse not to face it. And this leads to our acceptance into our culture of stealth jihadists who have figured out how to say what we want to hear, while they scheme behind the scenes to further Islamize the West. (Read more.)

FAQ Page

On this website, we engage Muslims and the foundations of Islam without trying to be "PC". We feel honesty is better than disguised language. As you can read on our FAQ, this is out of love, not out of hatred. Thanks, and we're looking forward to seeing your comments!